ISLAMABAD, February 26, 2016: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh adopted one resolution and left most of its agenda unaddressed during 18^th sitting of the ongoing 23^rd session on Friday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Sindh Assembly met for three hours and 15 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1600 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• Thirty six (22%) lawmakers were present at the start and 58 (35%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for two hours and 19 minutes while the remaining time was chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Chief Minister was absent.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 37 minutes.
• Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-F and PTI were present.
• Three minority members attended the sitting.
• Two members applied for leave.

Output

• Tabled by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House unanimously adopted a resolution to condemn forced shutdown of a private media group even before its launch.
• Two government bills – the Karachi Institute of Technology and Entrepreneurship Bill, 2015 and the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Bill, 2016 – were not taken up.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Three out of nine starred questions appearing on the agenda received oral reply from the government. In addition, lawmakers asked 18 supplementary questions.
• Four out of five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) appearing on the list of business were responded to by the relevant departments. The remaining CANs were not taken up due to lack of time.
• An Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding unavailability of Hepatitis B and C vaccines in Hyderabad was not taken up by the House.
• The House rejected a Privilege Motion (PM) submitted by an MQM member regarding cancelation of approved development scheme for Karachi. The motion consumed 18 minutes of the proceeding.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on 15 Points of Order consuming 18 minutes of the proceeding.
• A Member belonging to PML-F protested against the Speaker for six minutes for not admitting his Calling Attention Notice. Later, the same member along with another member of PML-N staged walk out from the House for eight minutes on the same issue.

Transparency

• “Orders of the Day” was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Information on legislators’ attendance was available to the observers and the public.

To download this factsheet in Urdu, click here 

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.